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Episode 531: Emails and Talk About Tanking
Date September 10, 2014 Summary Ben and Sam answer listener emails about tanking, job searching, rule changes and more. Topics * Getting analytics jobs with teams * Getting started with sabermetric research * Defensive comeback player of the year * Statcast data and defensive value * Taking balls out of play * The best September call-ups * Tanking for ideal playoff spots Intro Jimmy Page & Robert Plant, "Please Read the Letter" Banter * Episode 530 follow-up: Several listeners wrote in with additional 2015 Comeback Player of the Year candidates. * Webb/Albers update: Ryan Webb finished a game without a save, the 87th of his career. * Sam is using the Play Index to find out which player season is most like Yasiel Puig's 2014. * Listener Ross wrote in about a Play Index search he ran regarding the Milwaukee Brewers current struggles. * Pace of play changes in the Atlantic League Email Questions * Steve: "OK, so this probably isn't a very interesting question for the show. For someone who has the required data analytics skills and the interest to do so, how hard is it to get a job with a team? Are there armies of econometrics Ph.D.s lining up to do this or would someone like me (software engineering, knows SQL inside and out, has used R professionally, understands statistics, can set up databases and systems, etc.) have a reasonable shot of getting a job like this? Lastly, how crazy would I be to choose to leave a good paying engineering job to do this kind of work even if it were possible? Is this a situation of crushing workload with low pay because folks are in it for the love of it or would it compare favorably, or at least not amazingly unfavorably?" * Steve: "If I'm starting to try to do interesting baseball research on my own what resource is there for me to get a good understanding of the current consensus views on topics or the best work so far on a topic to jump off from? It doesn't make sense for me to go out and do my own 'clutch is real' research when it's already been sliced and diced to hell. Is there any easy way of doing a literature search to understand what ground has already been covered?" * Scott: "When will we see the first comeback of the year awarded on the strength of defensive statistics?" * Adam: "Why must every time a pitch hits the dirt or is caught by the catcher in the dirt does the umpire change the ball? And if the pitch glancing the dirt corrupts the ball why aren't ground balls, many of which also hit the dirt before being fielded, also replaced or at least inspected by the umpire?" * Chris: "If the Orioles should tank. Up by 10 games in the AL East the Orioles only real playoff related race for the rest of the season is for the best record in the American League. The main competition is from the AL West teams, currently they are 4 wins behind the Angels, 4 games ahead of the A's and 5 games ahead of the Mariners. With these teams playing each other several times and the orioles remaining games being against AL East teams that have been or will be soon eliminated from playoff contention, is it not crazy to think that the Orioles could end up with the best record in the AL? I can't believe I just wrote that sentence. However should they want it? If they get the best record in baseball there is a good chance that their reward will be playing the winner of an A's/Mariners play-in game. Both teams have a higher 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order winning percentage than the O's. Meanwhile whichever team finishes with the 2nd best record in the AL will get to play the winner of the AL Central (the Royals, Tigers, or Indians), all which have lower 1st, 2nd or 3rd order winning percentages. So, if the Orioles end up with the best record in baseball their reward could be to play possibly the second best team in the AL in the ALDS and if they advance the best team in baseball in the ALCS. Even if there is not an all AL West play-in game, whichever AL West team that does make it will be favored over whichever weak AL Central team makes it. Obviously I know that the playoffs are a crapshoot and all that, but it seems to me that the Orioles should rest some starters, pitch Ubaldo Jimenez three or four times, try some September call-ups in the bullpen over the last few weeks of the season, maybe give Ryan Webb a few save opportunities, and aim for the second best record in the AL. I'd rather face the AL Central and have one fewer ALCS home game than have that extra home game and face two AL West opponents. In baseball this is a new phenomenon because of the recently expanded playoffs. In other sports though losing on purpose for playoff seeding is something that happens regularly, see Australia's basketball team. Is it ethical for the Orioles to do this? Against some unwritten rule? How blatant could the Orioles get?" * Sam: "What if batters were allowed to tag up on fly balls?" Play Index * Sam looks at runs created leaderboards for 1st year players to see who is the best September call-up since 2000. * Since 2000 Daric Barton was the best September call-up by runs created in September. * For pitchers, Dillon Gee threw 33 innings with a 2.18 ERA during his initial call-up. * Since 2000 there have been 274 pitchers called up in September. Their balk rate is triple that of the league average. Notes * The Brewers are currently on an 8 game losing streak with a -38 run differential. Since 1995 only three teams have had a stretch that bad and still made the playoffs. * In Episode 469 Ben and Sam talked to Matt Dennewitz about his project to archive sabermetric research. * Sam refuses to answer an email with the subject line: "Ponder Adam's Hall of Fame resume when he's Dunn". * At the time of the episode recording, Sam notes that Paul Molitor was the only player in the Hall of Fame to have had Tommy John surgery (John Smoltz was elected in 2015). * Sam thinks even if the wild card game winner is better than a division winner, you still want to face the wild card winner because they have not had a chance to align their rotation and rest players. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 531: Emails and Talk About Tanking * Pickup Up the Pace by Joe DeLessio Category:Email Episodes Category:Episodes